Does Stock Listing Affect Value Creation and Profitability? Evidence from European Listed and Unlisted Companies

In this paper we have studied the issue of whether the stock listing decision impacts firms’ performance and value. In detail, we compared listed and unlisted companies located in countries belonging to the Stoxx Europe 600 in a 3-year time horizon (2015-2017). Companies are grouped in sector in order to ensure a greater comparability of data. As variable representative of performance we used the return on equity while for value creation we chosen the ROE-ke differential. Using the statistical t-test we ascertain the comparability of values. Results of our study demonstrated that unlisted companies have greater profitability and generate higher value than listed peers. In particular, given the significance level at 1% resulting from the t-test for the difference between the means, profitability and value created are higher for unlisted companies compared to the listed especially for the Thecnology, Telecommunication and Industrials sectors